Driven by the huge number of possibilities and innovations that can be scripted with the help of Internet of Things or IoT, this space is getting hotter day by day and holds tremendous potential for Communication Service Provider (CSPs) to create next generation solutions around IoT.
CSPs are quickly evolving from a day in which there were only two to three touch points, i.e. Internet, telephone and television, to potentially hundreds of devices and touch points in todays changing telecom landscape. It is about connecting everything possible – from surveillance systems to heart rate monitors which has led, data to grow exponentially every minute, every day.
There are more things connected to the internet than the number of human beings and according to Gartner it is expected to grow even further with over 25 billion connected devices by the end of 2020.
Currently CSPs are struggling to push themselves in the M2M/IoT market with the current solutions they have. It is set to open up new possibilities for the telecom operators in order to innovate around their existing architecture to support a range of devices, networks and applications to offer seamless communication.
CSPs in an IoT Driven Era should offer which has following features:
In order to venture towards a number of unexplored areas and verticals and create industry leading innovations around IoT ecosystems, CSPs need to:
- Develop new age partnerships with the existing stakeholders such as technology and application providers in the IoT value chain.
- Offer a platform that is network agnostic, supporting multiple networks for communication and not limited to cellular networks only.
- Offer a platform that is device agnostic to support multiple devices such as Mobiles, Tablets, Cameras, Monitors, Health Equipments, Industrial Machines, etc. These devices will generate various data records which could give meaningful insights to CSP’s for further monetization of their services and for a seamless user experience.
- The platform should also have an inbuilt Network Monitoring tool to handle data collected from millions of devices, to understand network behavior and control random burst of data to eliminate unpredictability in the network infrastructure.
- With the large amount of devices connected, it becomes even more important for operators to seamlessly authenticate every device from a security perspective and this is where they need next generation AAA services in order to enable a unique IoT experience for their customers.
